<p>With matriculation day a week away, I'm stuck between two final choices: Harvard and Penn M&T. For those of you who don't know, Penn M&T is a dual-degree program at Penn at the Wharton School and SEAS. </p>
<p>At Penn M&T, I'll double-concentrate in finance and management and entrepreneurship at Wharton and systems engineering or computer science at SEAS. At Harvard, I'll be studying either Economics or Applied Mathematics with an economics focus.</p>
<p>What I'm stuck between is the two completely different paths I can be taking. M&T is severely pre-professional and I do like learning for learning's sake, that sort of intellectualism that a pre-professional environment doesn't harbor. However, I do know that business is a field I will pursue, and that's something that will not likely change, which pushes me more toward M&T. I feel like Harvard would open up much more opportunities for me, while M&T will prepare me best for what I want to do.</p>
<p>What do you guys think?</p>
<p>By the way, I will be posting this same message in the Harvard thread to ensure I have both opinion bases.</p>
<p>I already posted this on someone else’s thread… I’m a current M&T and if you would like to talk to someone who made the same decision Harvard vs. m&T please msg me.</p>
<p>I think for you, since you are sure that the business line is where you want to end up, M&T would be ideal! </p>
<p>I have the same decision but I have decided to go with Harvard. I just feel more comfortable with the vibe there than at Penn. Plus since I am not sure that business is what I want to go into, Harvard will provide for me a better preparation for a multitude of careers while still leaving business as an option if that is where I want to end up. I think recruiting is most aggressive for M&T then Wharton then Harvard. So I’ll still have that option.</p>
<p>I personally did not like the preprofessional vibe at Penn. I prefer a more intellectual undergraduate experience. </p>
<p>But this decision depends on you. Academically, both will provide you with adequate development. The question is where you will enjoy the experience more! Where is your heart? Follow it!</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, coming from another 2015er, I haven’t found that the atmosphere at Penn is as preprofessional as CCers generally seem to think. Penn is perhaps the most pre-professional of the Ivies, excluding Cornell, but its administration nonetheless embraces learning for the sake of learning. Wharton’s mantra, for example, is “business and more,” and even a single-degree Wharton student is required to take 40% of his classes outside of Wharton. This short clip on Wharton’s undergraduate homepage talks about the “business and more” approach from the perspective of current students, including one who is in M&T:</p>
<p>I recommend clicking through the other short videos there, as well; they offer some good insight into what life is like as an undergrad pursuing a business degree.</p>
<p>Also, M&T is a small program with specific resources and advisors that cater directly to its students. M&Ters are among the most-recruited students at Penn and Wharton, but I think that the personal attention provided to an M&T student would also serve you well in the future if you were to, say, pursue a PhD rather than work on Wall Street. Connections and recommendations seem practically guaranteed to students in Penn’s dual-degree programs, so you could choose the intellectual route later on if you really wanted to.</p>
<p>As far as Harvard goes, there is no denying that you would get a good education there and be well-connected upon graduation, as well. Harvard is, perhaps, slightly more prestigious than Wharton, but I like to think that the Wharton name holds its own, too. The M&T program is certainly looked well upon in the business world. </p>
<p>Congratulations on your options! You can’t make a bad choice, but I really hope that you’ll choose to become a Quaker. Best of luck!</p>
Indeed, the purported “preprofessional atmosphere” of Penn relative to its peers–including Harvard–is greatly exaggerated here on CC. Penn’s College of Arts and Sciences has 6,400 undergrads, roughly the size of Harvard College. And, as you and the Wharton undergrad web site point out, Wharton undergrads can be quite intellectual and expansive in their interests (including in their Wharton courses!), and typically take 40% of their courses in the liberal arts.</p>
<p>One thing to note that was sort of already mentioned is that you will have unparalleled attention in M&T. At Harvard, you will have to be one of 1600 (or however many) freshmen, and you will have to seek out and make your own opportunities–you won’t get any special treatment and will have to make yourself stand out. It M&T, they basically throw cool opportunities at you and you have even more resources available to you than the normal student. (This is one of the reasons my friend chose Huntsman, a different dual degree program, over Harvard 3 years ago).</p>
<p>At the same time, it should be noted that Harvard will be a lot easier than M&T. Not because it’s inferior, but because the nature of engineering+Wharton is that it is very difficult. Most of the M&T people I know excel at Penn both academically and socially, though…somehow, admissions is good at realizing who the super-humans are.</p>
Where is your heart? Follow it!</p>